People v. Eckstrom, Cr. 29425

• Court: California Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: KAUS
• Citation: 71 Cal.App.3d 259,139 Cal.Rptr. 341
• Decision Date: 28 June 1977
• Docket Number: Cr. 29425
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Carl Anders ECKSTROM, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 341

139 Cal.Rptr. 341 71 Cal.App.3d 259 PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
Carl Anders ECKSTROM, Defendant and Appellant. Cr. 29425. Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 5, California. June 28, 1977.
Rehearing Denied July 21, 1977.
Hearing Denied Aug. 25, 1977.

[71 Cal.App.3d 260] Monroe & Riddet and Keith C. Monroe, Santa Ana, for defendant and appellant.

Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., Jack R. Winkler, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Crim. Div., S. Clark Moore, Asst. Atty. Gen., Howard J. Schwab and Alexander W. Kirkpatrick, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

Page 342

KAUS, Presiding Justice.

Defendant Carl Anders Eckstrom was charged with two counts of murder and one count of assault with a deadly weapon. He pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. After a court trial, defendant was found guilty as charged; the murder counts were fixed in the first degree. ¹ It is evident that the conviction was not based on a felony murder theory, but on express findings if deliberation and premeditation. The trial court found defendant to be sane. In People v. [71 Cal.App.3d 261] Eckstrom, 2d Crim. 25002, filed in February 1975, the court affirmed the judgment of conviction, but remanded the cause for a new sanity hearing.

This time the issue of defendant's sanity was tried to a jury, which found that he was sane at the time of the commission of all three offenses.

On appeal, defendant contends that the rule that a defendant must prove his insanity by a preponderance of the evidence (e.g., In re Franklin (1972) 7 Cal.3d 126, 141, 101 Cal.Rptr. 553, 496 P.2d 465) denies him due process of law. There is no merit to that contention.

Defendant recognizes that in Leland v. Oregon (1952) 343 U.S. 790, 794, 798--799, 72 S.Ct. 1002, 96 L.Ed. 1302, the Supreme Court held that a state could consistent with due process, require a defendant to prove his insanity, provided that the prosecutor is required to prove every element of the offense itself beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the California rule, as defendant recognizes. (E.g., People v. Wells (1949) 33 Cal.2d 330, 350, 202 P.2d 53.) Defendant insists, however, that Leland is no longer good law, because the Supreme Court in In re Winship (1970) 397 U.S. 358, 365--366, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368, held that the reasonable doubt standard applied in juvenile proceedings, and in Mullaney v. Wilbur (1975) 421 U.S. 684, 704, 96 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508, held that a state could not, consistent with due process, require a defendant to prove that a homicide was not a murder. As Justice Rehnquist made clear in a separate concurring opinion in Mullaney (421 U.S. at p. 705, 95 S.Ct. 1881), there is no inconsistency between Leland and Winship or Mullaney. In short, no new or...